94 shine on... the glove-leather trench...beged-or's city slicker Epaulets. Bigsleeves. Patch pockets. Slouchy ease. Everything you've always wanted in a trench. Only softer. More supple. More luxe. The fine Italian hand of Versace for Beged-Or...in silky black. 6 to 10 sizes, $438. Leather Trapings 3rd Floor. New York store only. . .., 4 . ., " >Ø ì . t "'" \ f ....... i .... ...., ! '" , '< '. \ f.. . ':: ":. ..- .. blæmingdole's 1000 Third Avenue New York 10022 with Robin, and it was one of the few times I found hel depressed. "It's a bad business, no matter how you look at it," she said. "The healthy drives get ob- scured by realities. I'm getting to be al- most an epicure of disillusion. I've had such tremendous hopes that I fear I'm beginning to wallow in the dIsappoint- ments. I begin to feel that a1] unhappi- ness is mine alone." She stopped and thought, and then said, "There are so many young pianists coming up that sometimes I feel I'm in a great big stew, being stirred around. There's a rumor that ] uilliard has already cancelled its piano auditions for next March, because there are no places Pianists seem to be coming out of the woodwork. I'm afraid to put a quarter in the Coke ma- chine over there for fear a pianist will pop out playing the Chopin 'Double Thirds' Étude." On November 16th, Robin and .L lan Weiss and five other Concert Artists Guild contestants gave an all- Brahms chamber-music recital in St. Stephen's Church, on West Sixty- ninth Street. The C.A.G. had allowed Alan and Robin to pick a piano from the Steinway studio, on Fifty-seventh Street, and they were both thriHed. There were several rehearsals, and on Saturday morning, the day of the last, the seven young musicians arnved at the church to find the gate locked. They climbed over it, woke the rec- tor, who let them in, and rehearsed in the cold building. The concert was well advertised and well attended. Be- tween the trio Robin did, with violin clnd cello, and the quintet Alan played, with a string quartet, the two did ten Hungarian dances arranged for four- hand piano. Since Robin was warmed up and Alan was not, he cautioned her, in a whisper, to take it easy on the tempos until he was warmed up, too. 'I'he playing was joyous and affection- ate. At a postconc rt party at Jane Har- ri 's, Robin and Richard Fields-who now had his own apartment, a new teacher, and the gleanings of serenity that went with a new sense of well- being-discussed a competition coming up in the spring. It was the big one- the Leventritt Robin saId that one re- ally had to evaluate whether or not it was worth the effort. She was still irked at the Naumburg. Runners-up in that " con test got no exposure- not even a nUl sing-home concert," she said. The Leventlitt, which is held at the whim of its director, Mrs. T. Roland Bernel ("Talent is like shad-when it runs, it runs," she has said), with violinists and cellists one year, pianists another, was SEPTEMDER 19, 1977 beginning to baffle everyone Instead of competIng with one another, the con- testants were measured against certain standards, and in the past two compe- titions no first prize had been awarded. The conce rts arranged for the finalists paid little, I obin said, and by the time a pianist had taken care of air fare and hotel room and bought something de- cent to wear, he would be lucky if he broke even The Leventritt is closed to performers over twenty-eight, and since Robin had just turned twenty-s.x, and Alan would be twenty-sIx in two months, the upcoming Leventritt would be the last that either of them could en- ter. The congestion in the field was he- ginning to provoke acute anxiety in pi- anists in their mid-twenties; there were herds of younger pianists shoving their way to the fore-a little too old to he called prodigies but young enough to impress teachers and critics. In mus'c, a performer gets more points for po- tential at twenty than at twenty-five, even though many very successful art- ists have not hit fun stride until they were in their middle or late thirties, or sometimes older. And there is so much work involved in getting ready for d big competition-polishing special pieces to satisfy repertoire requirements, which have been getting stiffer and stiffer, while the rest of one's repertoire suf- fers. Still, after giving it a lot of thought, Robin sent an application to the Leventntt Foundation. Through the fan and winter, Robin continued to do solo concerts on the East Coast-in Connecticut, in North Carolina, in Washington, D.C -and she was still playing any jazz dates that she could fit into her schedule. In January of 1 976, she flew to Spokane to do the T chaIkovsky Concerto No. 1 with the Spokane Symphony, and the reviews were wonderful. The Spokes- man-Review said, in part, "Magnifi- cent. . . virtually awesome... first- rate concert pianist, and her stature will only increase with time. An electrify- ing performance. . . forceful and dra- It Ii" . I It ,. '" It ., u 11111 lill ttr- I , U Þ , E "'AURA"T f..-t\ , , " II ,I ; I t 'I . 't ':. I .:- . .. .. ( . ....... - . : ; , " tI(/